Mum of three didn't remember having children or recognise husband after she woke from a coma
Filed under: Mums
Caters
A mother of three is slowing getting to know her family again after a 10 day coma wiped 13 years of her memory.
Sarah Thomson, 32, from Exeter spent 10 days in a coma after malformed blood vessel connections burst in her head last November.
The last thing she remembers before waking up in hospital is feeling something 'ping' at the back of her neck while sitting at her computer screen, and then being in an ambulance.
When she woke up, she believed she was 19, and had no idea who husband Chris, 34, and kids Michael, 14, Daniel, five, and Amy, four, were. In fact, she thought IT technician Chris, her partner of 10 years, was a hospital worker.
"When the children came to see me I just had no idea who they were, I thought they were somebody else's children," says Sarah.
i
I kept calling them the wrong names, and had no idea why they were so pleased to see me. Eventually I asked if they were mine, and when I was told I couldn't believe it. I was 19 when I had Michael, so I got very confused when they brought him to see me. I was expecting him to be my little baby.
i
Sarah thought it was 1998, and had no recollection of marrying Chris. She thought the Spice Girls were still together and Michael Jackson was still alive.
With Chris's help, Sarah has learned to love her family again, and is slowing remembering more and more about her life each day:
"I had no recollection of meeting him, or marrying him whatsoever. I had to fall in love with him all over again really. He took me to all the places we'd be too when we first got together to try and jog my memory.
"It's a bit weird when I wake up each morning and see a stranger lying next to me, but it all comes flooding back after a while.
i
He's been amazing really, helping me get myself together. I feel a bit like a teenager at the moment, I dye my hair all different colours and can get really moody at times, so he's certainly had to get used to the new me. But he's stuck by me through it all, he's just been amazing. Music triggers things, and Chris kept a diary when I was ill which helps.
i
"I remember more and more each day.
"I'm just enjoying being with my children and Chris, and taking each day as it comes. I watch videos and look at pictures to try and remember what I used to be like with them, but sometimes it's like watching a different person."
More on Parentdish:
Amnesia leaves thirty-something mum thinking she is 15!
Dad loses 17 years of Christmas memories
Wise words on motherhood
- <p> “You’re not a mother until you’ve had nits.”</p> <p> <strong>TV star Coleen Nolan</strong></p>
- <p> “I was not a classic mother...I didn’t bake cookies. You can buy cookies, but you can’t buy love.”</p> <p> <strong>Actress Raquel Welch </strong> </p>
- <p> <strong><em>“</em></strong>Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shovelling the walk before it stops snowing.”</p> <p> <strong>Actress Phyllis Diller</strong></p>
- <p> “Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he is buying.”</p> <p> <strong>Author Fran Lebowitz</strong></p>
- <p> “Life is tough enough without having someone kick you from the inside.”</p> <p> <strong>Comedienne Rita Rudner</strong></p>
- <p> “Having a baby is like watching two very inefficient removal men trying to get a very large sofa through a very small doorway, only in this case you can't say, 'Oh, sod it, bring it through the French windows.'"</p> <p> <strong>Comedienne Victoria Wood</strong></p>
- <p> “You can’t qualify in the subject but you’re expected to have a vast number of qualifications: chauffer, diplomat, vet, clown, Blue Peter presenter, chef, paramedic, critic, referee, weapons inspector, therapist, computer expert, liar.”</p> <p> <strong>Actress Imogen Stubbs</strong></p>
- <p> “A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.<strong>"</strong></p> <p> <strong>Author </strong><strong>Tenneva Jordan </strong></p>
- <p> "The first time you leave your child at school you're faced with a tough decision - down the pub or back to bed?”</p> <p> <strong>Comedienne Jo Brand</strong></p>
- <p> "There never was a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him asleep.” </p> <p> <strong>Poet Ralph Waldo Emerson</strong></p>
- <p> “A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child."</p> <p> <strong>Actress Sophia Loren </strong></p>
- <p> "Any mother could perform the jobs of several air-traffic controllers with ease."</p> <p> <strong>American writer Lisa Alther</strong></p>
- <p> “Nothing will ever make you as happy or sad, as proud or as tired as motherhood.”</p> <p> <strong>Author Elia Parsons</strong></p>
- <p> "A mother “is a nutritionist, a child psychologist, an engineer, a production manager, an expert buyer, all in one.”</p> <p> <strong>Anthropologist Margaret Mead </strong></p>
- <p> “Motherhood is “having someone else to blame when there is a rude smell in the air.”</p> <p> <strong>Actress Jane Horrocks</strong></p>
- <p> “You know you really are a mother when: you use your own saliva to clean your child's face; your child throws up and you catch it.”</p> <p> <strong>Humorist Erma Bombeck</strong></p>
- <p> “The story of a mother’s life: Trapped between a scream and a hug.”</p> <p> <strong>Cartoonist</strong><strong> Cathy Guisewite</strong></p>
- <p> “Motherhood is not for the fainthearted. Frogs, skinned knees, and the insults of teenage girls are not meant for the wimpy.”</p> <p> <strong>Author Danielle Steel</strong></p>
- <p> “Never being number one in your list of priorities and not minding at all.”</p> <p> <strong>Model and designer Jasmine Guinness</strong></p>
- <p> “Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help mom with the dishes.”</p> <p> <strong>Writer P.J. O’Rourke </strong></p>
Share this article
6 Comments